


The Devil Drives A Grey Sedan

by matchka



Category: The X-Files
Genre: AU, Conspiracy, Desperate times call for desperate measures, F/M, Gen, M/M, Mytharc, Post-season 7, in which scully begins to understand why mulder just can't quit krycek, misplaced trust in one-armed assholes, post-Requiem, pregnant scully, scully's worst decision since En Ami, worst roadtrip ever
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-05-30
Updated: 2016-08-20
Packaged: 2018-07-11 05:02:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,975
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7030033
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matchka/pseuds/matchka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>post-Requiem. Mulder is missing. Krycek is a devious bastard with a mouth full of promises and a plan to get him back. And Scully...well, Scully is desperate enough to believe him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> i know nobody sane ships this shit but here I am.

The Devil drives a grey sedan, Scully thinks, as the car pulls up outside the service station. She has an overnight bag slung over her shoulder, a gun tucked into the waistband of her slacks. The Devil drives a grey sedan and she’s about to slide into the passenger seat and, worst of all - worse than the sick feeling in the pit of her stomach, the dry throb in the back of her skull – she is doing this out of choice.

There are decisions a person makes only when they are on the very precipice; when the end of their metaphorical rope has been reached and there is only a black, yawning space beneath, waiting to swallow them entire. There are decisions which, in better times – saner times – would seem as measured and well-considered as sticking one’s arm in the garbage disposal and pressing the ‘on’ switch. What Would Mulder Do? Scully asks herself, as she shuts the car door behind her, inhaling the scent of worn leather and cheap pine air freshener. WWMD? Exactly this, she thinks, fumbling with her seatbelt. Isn’t that why she’s doing it in the first place?

She looks up. The Devil has green eyes.

“Agent Scully,” he says. Flat tone, inviting no speculation. “Wasn’t sure you’d actually show.”

The gun is cold against her hip. She brushes the grip with the pad of her thumb. She knows he can see it; she knows he affords it as much respect as he might a water-pistol.  
(It’s not that he doesn’t think she can use it. It’s just that he’s arrogant enough to think he can weasel his way out if she ever turns it on him. She knows this is false. She suspects he does too.)

“Don’t talk, Krycek,” she says, pressing her forehead against the blessedly cool window. “Just drive.” 

*

She’s alone when he comes to her that first time: solemn, all in black, a long-limbed predator scenting her weakness. He slips unseen into the silent, oppressive cocoon of her empty apartment; a shadow in the hall, a creak of floorboards. 

(She understands later that this was all calculated: her apprehending him was entirely on his terms. It’s a sour realisation.)

Gun out. Safety off. She can still remember when her home was her sanctum, those sweet, naïve days when she’d believed a single lock was enough to keep her safe. Feet light on the floorboards, slow and deliberate, back to the wall. She can do it in her sleep now. Rounding the corner, and there he is, unaware, not half as cunning as his wolf-smile suggests; she’s on him in a flash. “Back against the wall, Krycek,” she barks, fingering the trigger; she will kill this man if she has to, and any remorse she might feel will only be reflexive. “Drop your gun. Hands where I can see them.”

He doesn’t turn quickly enough. She grabs a handful of shirt collar, yanks him down to her level; he makes to protest but the barrel of her gun is a swift, effective silencer. Up against the wall, hands splayed, face pressed hard against the wallpaper. There’s something strangely thrilling in the way the muzzle fits so perfectly in the hollow between skull and spine, something satisfying in the red, glistening slash of his skin-split mouth.

“I’m going to give you five seconds to explain why you’re in my apartment,” she says, through clenched teeth. Her mouth is dry, the sour-tongued tackiness of unbrushed teeth. She has been in hospital for two days, being poked and scanned and questioned over and over by doctors, by the FBI, by Skinner, as if she has the faintest idea about anything that’s happening. She could not be any less in the mood for Krycek’s brand of bullshit. “And you’d better make it good. Don’t think for a second that I will hesitate to shoot you. It’d be the least you deserve.”

“That wouldn’t be very smart of you,” he says – breathless but controlled, as though he’s intimately familiar with finding himself on the wrong end of a gun. “I’m the only one in a position to give you what you want, Agent Scully. It’s not in your interest to shoot me.”

“Five seconds, Krycek. Why are you here?”

“Give me some goddamn room and I’ll tell you.”

Slowly, she releases the pressure on his spine. She takes a small step back, keeping the gun raised. Aiming between the eyes. He lowers his hands, slowly – no gun at his belt, she’d checked before she let him go – peels his body from the wall, twisting his spine so he’s facing her. He’s all in black, dressed for a funeral. It occurs to her – very briefly, because he’d surely gloat if it were true and she can’t stomach that possibility, not now – that Mulder is dead, and Krycek has come to share the news. Always the first in the know.

“You don’t think very highly of me, do you?” His eyes glint, implacable, a shark’s eyes. He raises a finger to his lips. The tip comes away red. “I’m here to make you an offer,” he says, wiping the blood away. “I don’t expect an answer right away. I’m going to give you time to think about it. But I think you’ll be interested.”

“Enough with the sales pitch,” she says. She’s sick of this, of everything: sick of not knowing, and of the stale, unwashed smell of her own skin. And she’s already sick of Alex fucking Krycek and his snake-oil salesman smirk. “There’s nothing you could offer me that I could ever want, Krycek, so why don’t you just-”

“I know how to find Mulder,” he says. 

And jesus, if that doesn’t change everything.

*

The car is stifling, the AC barely fit for purpose. Scully feels faintly queasy. There is a plastic carrier bag in the footwell with a couple of bottles of water and what appears to be a selection of car snacks. She tries to imagine Alex Krycek picking out chips in the supermarket, browsing the candy aisle.

“What I’m finding hard to understand,” she says, “is why.”

He drives with his left hand on the wheel at all times. Automatic transmission. He’s wearing gloves, a dark jacket, even in this heat. It doesn’t seem to bother him. 

“At every step, you’ve thrown obstacles in Mulder’s way. You’ve actively worked against him in his pursuit of the truth. You’ve been an adversary almost from day one, and now you’re setting off halfway across the country to find him? Surely you can see how questionable that sounds?”

“And yet here you are,” he says, regarding the highway ahead with heavy-lidded boredom. 

Here she is, she thinks. She prods at the bag with her toe, nudging at the contents. A can of Mountain Dew rolls out. The part of her that had resolved, on Melissa’s murder, to never trust this rat of a man is pounding at the inside of her skull, demanding answers: he’s promised you Mulder, but has he demonstrated how? Where? Do you really believe he’ll make good on what he’s offering you?

She strains against the seatbelt, lifts the plastic bag into her lap, hoping the activity will shut off that insistent little voice. She knows it’s talking sense – Pepsi, Doritos, Swedish Fish, good god, has this man ever eaten anything fresh in his life? – but she can’t listen right now, won’t listen. She’s reminded of another car, another journey: the pungent odour of cigarette smoke, the maddening, constant pressure of a wire against her sternum. This is not like that, she tells herself; she’s not chasing nebulous promises of a scientific discovery which may or may not exist, indulging her doctor’s need to heal the world, to turn water into wine and to cure the five thousand of cancer. Her reasoning here is substantial, if questionably sound: Mulder is out there, somewhere. She has to find him before they do something terrible. And Krycek knows where to look.  
Krycek says he knows where to look.

“What’s in Arizona?” she asks, not for the first time.

He shoots her an irritated look. “I thought you said ‘don’t talk, just drive’?”

“And now I’m asking you a question.” She’s not afraid of him. She feels very little towards Alex Krycek; she resolved some time ago that he would take up the bare minimum of emotional real estate. There is a modicum of contempt, little else; she won’t allow him the luxury of her hatred. “I’ve humoured you so far, Krycek, beyond all sensible logic, because you promised me answers. But I can’t help but notice you’ve been a little light on the details.”

“There’s a rest stop maybe twenty miles from here,” Krycek says. “I can drop you off if you’ve changed your mind. A cab back to DC might cost you some, but I guess it’s all on expenses, right?” His teeth flash, a cat’s smirk. “I miss the company credit card.”

Scully smiles, sweetly as she can muster. It hurts her jaw. “Go on, bullshit me some more. See how quickly I handcuff your ass to that steering wheel, shoot out your tyres and alert the police to your whereabouts. I bet there’s a hell of a reward.”

“That’s some mouth you got on you, Agent Scully.”

“Like you give a damn.” She rips open a packet of candy, cramming a handful of Swedish fish into her mouth. She doesn’t even care for sweet things, but her body is suddenly crying out for sugar. She wonders quietly at this little life inside of her, at the alien territory her body is becoming.

“Let me assure you of something,” Krycek says, quietly now. “If I were out to screw you over, I would have done it days ago. I sure as hell wouldn’t be sitting here, in this shitty sweatbox car, with you shooting me the evil eye. I don’t like inconvenience, Scully, and this is the dictionary definition of inconvenient.”

She chews her candy silently, staring out at the lush green pines hemming the road in.

“I know my word isn’t worth shit to you,” he says, “but you chose to come with me.”

It’s called ‘desperation’, Krycek, she thinks. The sugar sits uneasy in her stomach. She prays it’ll stay down. The less she has to explain, the safer she’ll be. 

“I think it was better when you were just driving,” she says.

*

She makes her choice in less than six hours.

Shortly after Krycek leaves, she heads to work. Skinner’s surprised to see her; he says nothing about Mulder, or about her pregnancy, but he stands that little bit closer to her when they walk, glancing from left to right at every junction. If it were anyone else she might feel patronised, but Skinner’s fears are founded in a reality she recognises with a horrible intimacy. And now Mulder is missing, he’s all she really has.

Still, when Skinner calls her – later on, once she’s home and showered and cocooned in the musty, familiar scent of her own unchanged bedsheets – and asks her if everything is all right (his voice hesitant on the other end of the phone, wanting honesty but fearing the answers that might bring) she finds she just can’t tell him. She thinks about the Smoking Man, about his false promises and his soft, rasping voice, how horribly naked she’d felt in that dress, with his eyes all over her like busy little hands. She thinks about how wrong she’d been. The hurt in Mulder’s eyes when he’d found out, although he never once rebuked her. 

She knows Krycek could have hurt her, if he’d really wanted to. 

It is this which makes her reach for the scrap of paper, the phone number scrawled on it. The handwriting is small, tidy. It surprises her. She’s not sure why.

The phone rings seven times before he picks up.

“It’s Scully,” she says. “I’m coming with you.”

*

They stop at a roadside diner an hour out of Knoxville, ostensibly so Scully can use the restroom, though she can see from the way Krycek’s jaw clenches as he gets out of the car that he’s aching from the long drive.

“I’ll wait here,” he says, indicating a patch of shade beneath the striped awning. “And, uh…” he fumbles in the pocket of his jeans, fishes out a few crumpled dollar bills. “I could use some coffee. Get yourself something if you like.”

The sun is low on the western horizon. They have been driving almost the whole afternoon, maintaining a curt, uncomfortable silence for the most part. It has been excruciating. After his sojourn to Tunguska Mulder told her Krycek was oddly charming, the kind of easy companion you forgot you were supposed to despise. She’s seen nothing of that Krycek; the man in the car is stiff, uncommunicative, focused entirely on the road ahead. He is a sullen man. A dangerous man.

She washes her face at the sink, rinsing off the dust from the road. The sun is going down and she has no idea what the plan is for tonight; Krycek can’t possibly drive through the night, and he’s shown no indication that she should take a turn at the wheel. He’d have to tell her too much. 

(“It’s safer this way,” he’d insisted, when she’d asked him why he was revealing the plan in instalments. “Safer for you,” she’d shot back. “You tell me everything, suddenly I don’t need you anymore. “ He’d let out a dry bark of laughter and driven on in silence.)

She takes her time at the counter, pretending to peruse the extensive selection of cheeseburgers. Krycek is a black shape in the corner of the window, back turned. She could run to the payphone, slip in a quarter; she could call Skinner, tell him she’s made a terrible mistake. That a bad man came to her in a dark hour and made her a beautiful promise.  
The coffee is thick and black as motor oil. She opts for tea. The drinks come in white polystyrene cups, thin plastic lids. She hands Krycek his as she exits. He doesn’t ask her for change.

“Here,” he says, when she’s back in the car. He’s holding out a large manila envelope. After a moment’s hesitation (how bad can an envelope be?) she takes it, slipping her thumb under the seal. Inside is a passport – her passport, except it’s in the name of one Gretchen Wald. The photograph has been lifted straight from her FBI badge. There’s also an accompanying plane ticket. The destination is Denver, Colorado. Confused anger boils in her gut.

“You said we’d find Mulder in Arizona,” she says, waving the boarding pass at him. “Why the hell are we going to Colorado?”

Krycek sighs. “I thought you were a smart woman, Agent Scully,” he says, laying out his own false passport and plane ticket. His is in the name of Thomas Wald. She distantly recognises the photo from his own FBI badge – wide puppy-dog eyes and terrible haircut, a study in youthful naivety. She’d never liked him back then (two parts jealousy, one part petulance) but she’d never suspected him either. Bad guys aren’t supposed to look like fresh-faced college kids. “Listen. If anyone gets wind of what we’re doing, they’ll come for us, and they’ll do it fast. It’s in our best interest to throw them off the scent. Never leave from your local airport. Never fly straight to your destination. Leave multiple state borders between the place you land, and the place you actually want to be. We don’t have time to do that, but I’ll take whatever precautions I’m able.” He starts the ignition. The car coughs into life. “Trust me on this. I’ve spent a lot of time staying off the radar.”

It pacifies the gnawing anxiety in her gut, if only a little. “We’re flying from Knoxville?”

He nods. “Late flight. Get us to Colorado around midnight. I’ve hired a car under the name on this passport. Drive it fifteen miles in the wrong direction. Hire a car in another name, double back. Once we’re fifty miles clear of the airport, we get to rest. Not before.”

Jesus, he’s paranoid. “You’re sure you can handle this? You’ve been driving all day. You’re going to be exhausted.”

He smirks. “I didn’t know you cared, Agent Scully.”

“I care about not ending up in a ditch off the Interstate.”

“I’ll be fine. I don’t sleep much.” He pops the lid off his coffee, takes a sip. “Ugh. You didn’t get any sugar?”

“There’s enough candy down here to power an entire kindergarten,” Scully says. Her tea is bitter, but she drinks it anyway. “Quit whining.”


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> if you're reading and enjoying this...what's wrong with you? (also, thank you thank you, stick around, crackship solidarity is a rare and beautiful thing.)

He’s a different man in the airport. It’s like he’s got a well of charm deep inside of him and with a flick of a switch he’s infused with it; gracious and genial and just the right degree of flirtatious, smiling all the way up to those pretty eyes – warm, now, not the knife-edge gleam she’d seen that night in her apartment. She plays along, burying her discomfort beneath a careful layer of artifice. It scares her, how thoroughly he immerses himself, how genuine it all feels. Because this man – this smiling, laid-back man, hand gentle on her shoulder as they check their baggage – this man is not Alex Krycek.

(That’s not strictly true. This man is Mulder’s Krycek: accomplished actor, charmer, felon. Partner, at least for a time. She doesn’t like to think about that. She doesn’t like to think about what it means.)

They board the plane. Krycek offers her the window seat – a curiously gracious gesture. She politely declines; she doesn’t want to be trapped between Krycek and the window. He shrugs, slips into the seat, indifferent to her refusal.

Scully buckles up. She glances around; the plane is half-empty, and even the stewards look a little ragged. She figures most of them will be clocking off after the plane lands. The seat is a little too hard, lumpy in all the wrong places; she probably won’t be able to sleep through the journey, and she hasn’t even got a book to while away the time.

_Why are you so concerned about this?_ her mind berates. Y _ou’re sitting next to a man who was once sent to murder you. Who murdered your sister instead. Who lies and cheats and kills because it’s convenient. What are you doing? Why the hell are you here?_

The plane lurches skyward. Her stomach goes with it. She swallows hard, forces herself to breathe slowly, evenly: _calm down. It’s too late to turn back now._ And then, a smaller, more urgent voice: _it’s the pregnancy. You’re going to give the whole thing away._ Breathe in. Breathe out. She can feel Krycek’s eyes on her, boring beneath the skin, inside her skull. It feels like he can see everything.

“What’s wrong?” he mutters.

“I get airsick,” she lies. Bile burns the back of her throat. “Sometimes. Not always.”

He makes an irritated noise. “Could’ve mentioned that before.”

Scully squeezes her eyes shut, trying desperately not to retch. She inhales slowly through her nose, holds it in her lungs. What a unique misery this is, she thinks: to feel so suddenly wretched in such unsympathetic company. And worse still, to know exactly what this wretchedness implies.

Krycek knows she’s lying. She’s certain of that. She just doesn’t know if he’s smart enough to intuit what it is she’s hiding.

“Excuse me?”

She opens her eyes. A pretty black air stewardess is standing beside her, all ruby lips and sharp-pressed uniform. Krycek shoots her his best smile (and it’s a hell of a smile, Scully thinks; the kind of smile women go weak at the knees for, right up until you look in his eyes and realise there’s nothing but contempt inside.) “I know we’re supposed to stay in our seats,” he says, “but my wife really isn’t feeling too hot, and I don’t want to cause you any trouble, but…”

“It’s all right, sir,” the stewardess says – _sir,_ like she has any idea who she’s talking to. It’s all Scully can do to keep from snorting with laughter. “I can escort her to the bathroom.”

“Would that be okay?” He leans over, squeezes her arm gently, and for a split second there’s a glint in his eye. It feels like a warning. “Why don’t you sit in the bathroom a while, honey, at least ‘til you feel a little better?” Then, to the stewardess: “I’m so sorry about this.”

Scully hadn’t known Alex Krycek could sound apologetic. She doesn’t think he’s apologised for anything his entire life. The word ‘honey’ sounds poisonous in his mouth. She wonders if the stewardess hears it too, but she just smiles – not remotely put out, because somehow she’s charmed by him, by _them_ – and takes Scully by the arm, gently, so as not to drag her up out of her seat. Together, they pass down the aisle, invoking only the mildest curiosity from the other passengers. She probably looks as bad as she feels; one look at her green-gilled complexion is likely all they need.

“I’ll be nearby,” the stewardess says, as she deposits Scully by the bathroom door. “Holler if you need anything, okay? I’ll just bring you some water.”

Scully smiles, a little too tightly. “Thank you,” she says, fumbling with the lock. The door slides shut behind her. She all but collapses onto the closed seat, pressing her head against the cool metal of the sink.

He can’t know. He mustn’t be _allowed_ to know. He has too much on her already.

She stands on shaky legs. Turns on the cold tap. Working with him is not the same as trusting him, she reminds herself, running her wrists under the water, her hands. She runs wet fingers over her too-hot forehead, slow-breathing until the nausea is under control. In the mirror, her face is thin and drawn. She shouldn’t be here. She knows she ought to be resting. But Mulder is out there in the ether, alone, and she would pace holes in her apartment floor waiting for news of him. Better to feel as though she’s doing something, anything. Even something insane.

Why not? It’s what he’d do.

Back in her seat she gives Krycek only a passing glance, hoping the hard lines of her face will afford her a veneer of chilly irritation, disguising the nervous churn of her stomach. He gives nothing away as he looks her over, a slow, lazy flicker of the eyes. She rifles through the seat pocket, pulls out the dog-eared inflight magazine. She can feel his eyes on her like fingers, prying gently at her nostrils, her ears, slipping in between her closed lips. Searching every inch of her for secrets. She keeps her head down, scanning articles without taking any of them in. Is this what it’s always like, she wonders? How can Mulder stand it, this terrible exposure, this unwilling mental intimacy?

When she turns to face him at last, his eyes are closed. She studies him for a long, quiet while; is he sleeping? Does Krycek sleep, or does he only ever pause for brief intervals, recharging long enough to push him for the next few miles? Rarely has an individual ever made her feel so on edge, even during sleep. The voice in the back of her head choruses: _Dana, Dana, what are you thinking?_

She leans back in her seat. Shuts her eyes, the hum of the aircraft loud inside her skull. _This is for Mulder,_ she tells herself, lacing her hands across her belly, and as she drifts into an uneasy doze, it almost feels like a good enough reason.


End file.
